The Current

Oscars 2019: Spike Lee and the Winners of the Clotheshorse Race, Men’s Division

Respect is due to the Battistoni suits of Martin Scorsese, to the dandified grandeur of Paul Feig, and to whatever confluence of genes and gel is responsible for the plumage of Jim Jarmusch. But Spike Lee is the most stylish of male American filmmakers. It is not always the best style, but it is the utmost. Perhaps he invented streetwear as we know it, somewhere in between directing the original Air Jordan ads and art-directing his own brand with “Malcolm X” hats.

Lee re-asserted his sartorial personality with his Oscars ensemble this year, an homage to Prince Rogers Nelson. His specs matched his suit, which was made by Savile Row’s Ozwald Boateng, in a shade of purple that I need to call regal grape. His shoes were glimmering golden prizes, custom Air Jordans instantly rendered priceless. His fingers reached back to “Do the Right Thing” in Radio Raheem’s “LOVE” and “HATE”—a fine shorthand, not incidentally, for the correct balance of feel while taking in the Academy Awards. Distinctive, defiant, delicious, the outfit was such the embodiment of Lee’s œuvre that it qualifies as a contribution to it. “I’m going to be as clean as the Board of Health,” Lee told the Times, correctly, in anticipation.

Much less accurately, he said, “I win the Oscar on the red carpet.” He won the Oscar onstage, for Adapted Screenplay, for “BlacKkKlansman.” But, very obviously, the mens’ division of the clotheshorse race was won by Billy Porter, who turned up in a glorious black-velvet genderfuck of a tuxedo gown, by Christian Siriano. Sombre and splendid, Porter sailed over the red carpet with the magnificence of a funeral honoring the souls he slayed as he passed.

Chadwick Boseman.

Photograph by Steve Granitz / WireImage / Getty

Stephan James.

Photograph by Steve Granitz / WireImage / Getty

The men seemed emboldened toward particular types of peacocking and penguinning this year, partly because it is slightly out of fashion to dwell too long on the outfits of their female colleagues. But one noticed none of the outré harnesses that young heartthrobs (Timothée Chalamet, Michael B. Jordan) sported earlier this awards season, with a gamy sweat to their swank and a hard edge to their glamour. Rather, we got, even more than usual, a lot of shawl collars, worn by celebrants including Nicholas Hoult, Stephan James, David Oyelowo, Jason Momoa, and the now two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali, whose black cap accentuated the priestly quality of his band collar.

Many of the evening suits’ contours evoked solemn pajamas in their color, their cut, or the texture of their friendly velvets. The paisley, the florals. The fluid lines and genderfluid rays of energy exemplified by Chadwick Boseman’s stately ease in what is basically a columnar gown. The masculinity of the moment called for the gentlemen to look very gentle—to wear their luxury items lightly, to take glee in tuxedoed exuberance.